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In an exclusive interview with [a]listdaily yesterday, Reggie Fils-Aimé, the CEO of Nintendo of America, explained that Nintendo needs to improve their communication of "the positioning" of the NX during its launch, going on to say how they need to do a better job helping people understand the "uniqueness" of the system and what it means for "the game-playing experience".

Furthermore, Fils-Aimé goes on to say how the NX needs to have a "continuous beat" of games for the system, which would create the urge to motivate "more and more people to pick up the hardware."

"We always do our breakdown of what worked, what didn’t, and certainly we’ve done that with Wii U, and we continue to believe that the innovation of the second screen was a worthwhile concept...... when we launch the NX—we have to do a better job communicating the positioning for the product. We have to do a better job helping people to understand its uniqueness and what that means for the game playing experience." ~ Reggie Fils-Aimé

The NX is still yet to be unveiled by Nintendo, however it is said to be a home-console/portable with datachable controllers.

---

Source (main interview with Reggie himself)

 

[JoostinOnline]

EA was smart to not bother with the WiiU.
They wouldn't make enough money with the small installed user base.

It isn't EA's fault ... It was Nintendo's.

It was small because EA went back on their word, allegedly because Nintendo wouldn't merge their network with Origin. Nintendo put all their chips on the "unprecedented partnership", and EA stabbed them in the back. Refusing to release a game that is almost completed shows that they didn't give a damn about making money. They lost money because of it.

 

[Foxi4]

It was small because EA went back on their word, allegedly because Nintendo wouldn't merge their network with Origin. Nintendo put all their chips on the "unprecedented partnership", and EA stabbed them in the back. Refusing to release a game that is almost completed shows that they didn't give a damn about making money. They lost money because of it.

Integrating cross-network functionality is standard affair these days, Origin is no exception, UPlay works in the same vein. We don't know all the details, but it would seem to me that Nintendo was stonewalling and got their comeuppance - EA games seem to work perfectly fine on the PS4 and the Xbox One. It was EA who was doing Nintendo a favour by offering a partnership, not the other way around. Not that it matters since current gen EA games wouldn't even work on the Wii U anyways, it's falls far too short in terms of specs to support anything beyond the odd FIFA or NBA Live. EA was lucky to bail, otherwise they would've ended up with tremendous losses, just like Ubisoft that stuck around on the sinking ship for as long as they could.

 

[FAST6191]

and EA stabbed them in the back. Refusing to release a game that is almost completed shows that they didn't give a damn about making money. They lost money because of it.

Had the advertising started in earnest? We often see that as a massive component of game production these days, in several cases even exceeding the production budget by a considerable amount. To that end and as much as I would enjoy purely vindictive behaviour being the motive (would spice up the world a bit if companies acted more towards those sorts of things than pure profit) I can also see the cost of port and expected return (for a small market*, especially if they lack side avenues like origin) be worth less than having the cash in hand to use somewhere else, and at the same time pressure someone into a more favourable deal next time and possibly avoid setting a precedent when your online service is not in the strongest position.

*I don't know what we can say about the demographics of Wii U buyers that had Crysis 3 as a major point in its favour, however I am sooner likely to stop laughing as the Watchdogs whiners and take them seriously than I am to consider that a truly viable revenue stream.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Integrating cross-network functionality is standard affair these days, Origin is no exception, UPlay works in the same vein. We don't know all the details, but it would seem to me that Nintendo was stonewalling and got their comeuppance - EA games seem to work perfectly fine on the PS4 and the Xbox One. It was EA who was doing Nintendo a favour by offering a partnership, not the other way around. Not that it matters since current gen EA games wouldn't even work on the Wii U anyways, it's falls far too short in terms of specs to support anything beyond the odd FIFA or NBA Live. EA was lucky to bail, otherwise they would've ended up with tremendous losses, just like Ubisoft that stuck around on the sinking ship for as long as they could.

Once again, it wouldn't have been a sinking ship if EA hadn't blackballed them.

I'm not talking about cross-network functionality. That exists already. Origin still works with Nintendo Network, as does does UPlay. According to the reports, they wanted to completely replace NN with Origin. That would be a horrible move for Nintendo.

The Wii U could run Crysis 3, so I don't see why it couldn't run other games. And since we're talking about scaling, let's remember that they made FIFA 14 for the PS2, but not the Wii U. Do you think more people were likely to buy the PS2 copy than a Wii U copy?

Had the advertising started in earnest? We often see that as a massive component of game production these days, in several cases even exceeding the production budget by a considerable amount. To that end and as much as I would enjoy purely vindictive behaviour being the motive (would spice up the world a bit if companies acted more towards those sorts of things than pure profit) I can also see the cost of port and expected return (for a small market*, especially if they lack side avenues like origin) be worth less than having the cash in hand to use somewhere else, and at the same time pressure someone into a more favourable deal next time and possibly avoid setting a precedent when your online service is not in the strongest position.

*I don't know what we can say about the demographics of Wii U buyers that had Crysis 3 as a major point in its favour, however I am sooner likely to stop laughing as the Watchdogs whiners and take them seriously than I am to consider that a truly viable revenue stream.

Advertising costs would be zero. All they had to do was add the Wii U logo to the current trailers. Crysis 3 came out just a few months after the Wii U. They had obviously been developing it since before the Wii U was even released. I understand the Watch Dogs delay (or even a cancellation). At that point, the Wii U was considered a flop.

 

[Foxi4]

Let's not forget that Nintendo Network exists partly due to EA's input - their experts worked with Nintendo, showing them how to code netcode and build a network that doesn't completely suck. The Wii U's online ecosystem would've been a very different place if not for their contribution since the Big N has almost zero experience in networking - they were the last to jump onto the online train, and no, I'm not going to count the exotic SNES and N64 networks as actual account-based online systems.

 

[osirisjem]

So the WiiU sucks because of EA.

 

[JoostinOnline]

Let's not forget that Nintendo Network exists partly due to EA's input - their experts worked with Nintendo, showing them how to code netcode and build a network that doesn't completely suck. The Wii U's online ecosystem would've been a very different place if not for their contribution since the Big N has almost zero experience in networking - they were the last to jump onto the online train, and no, I'm not going to count the exotic SNES and N64 networks as actual account-based online systems.

Source?

So the WiiU sucks because of EA.

I didn't say that. I said the Wii U failed mostly because of EA. The secondary reason was they had terrible advertising. Tons of people thought it was just a new controller for the Wii. And I would disagree that it sucks. How you feel about the hardware itself is strictly personal. I think it could have been a great budget console if not for third party companies bailing after EA blackballed them.

 

[Foxi4]

Once again, it wouldn't have been a sinking ship if EA hadn't blackballed them.

I'm not talking about cross-network functionality. That exists already. Origin still works with Nintendo Network, as does does UPlay. According to the reports, they wanted to completely replace NN with Origin. That would be a horrible move for Nintendo.

The Wii U could run Crysis 3, so I don't see why it couldn't run other games. And since we're talking about scaling, let's remember that they made FIFA 14 for the PS2, but not the Wii U. Do you think more people were likely to buy the PS2 copy than a Wii U copy?

PS2, on account of Brazil and other developing countries in which the PS2 is still top dog to this day. It would've sank either way because the titles EA makes did not appeal to the Wii U's core demographic - all of EA's blockbusters, including Batman, Mass Effect 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted flopped despite being, for all intents and purposes, the definitive console versions of the games at the time. The same can be said about Ubisoft's and Activision's games, EA was just smart to pull out when they did. As far as scaling is concerned, the FIFA you play on the PS2 is most certainly not the FIFA you play on the PS4, I'll tell you that much. There is absolutely no way the Wii U could pull off some of the modern releases from the PS4 or the Xbox One, those platforms are orders of magnitude beefier and they have problems maintaining 1080p @ 60 FPS, or 30 FPS for that matter. If you think the Wii U could do any better with its puny 2GB RAM, a PPC7xx that's outdated by a decade and its weak Radeon HD look-alike, you're living in Kirby's Dream Land. Not everything is as easily scalable as Call of Duty, and even the latest CoD had to release without a single player campaign on last gens since they had too little juice to support the maps and the AI.

Source?

The source is the exact same rumour you're referencing in regards to Nintendo Network becoming a part of the Origin ecosystem, which initially started on Reddit as far as I know.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/631516-/63629803

Naturally none of this is confirmed and it's all hearsay from a friend of a friend, but I've heard numerous sources claiming that EA was heavily involved in the creation of Nintendo Network as Nintendo themselves didn't know what the hell they were doing and they were impressed with EA's netcode on the Wii, so they went straight to them for council. The result of that relationship was an "unprecedented partnership" they announced at E3, but that eventually fell through as EA was too greedy and Nintendo was grandstanding instead of coming up with some sort of compromise. To be fair though, had they continued to make games for the Wii U, it would lower the bar for every other system as the games would have to be compatible with the lowest common denominator.

Of course this could all be bullshit, we'll never know what really happened. Chances are it was much simpler than that and ultimately it probably came down to money - EA games didn't sell well on the platform and there were no signs of the situation ever improving, so they just pulled the plug on any future endeavours, as they have with the PSVita - welcome to business.

 

[JoostinOnline]

PS2, on account of Brazil and other developing countries in which the PS2 is still top dog to this day. It would've sank either way because the titles EA makes did not appeal to the Wii U's core demographic - all of EA's blockbusters, including Batman, Mass Effect 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted flopped despite being, for all intents and purposes, the definitive console versions of the games at the time. The same can be said about Ubisoft's and Activision's games, EA was just smart to pull out when they did. As far as scaling is concerned, the FIFA you play on the PS2 is most certainly not the FIFA you play on the PS4, I'll tell you that much. There is absolutely no way the Wii U could pull off some of the modern releases from the PS4 or the Xbox One, those platforms are orders of magnitude beefier and they have problems maintaining 1080p @ 60 FPS, or 30 FPS for that matter. If you think the Wii U could do any better with its puny 2GB RAM, a PPC7xx that's outdated by a decade and its weak Radeon HD look-alike, you're living in Kirby's Dream Land. Not everything is as easily scalable as Call of Duty, and even the latest CoD had to release without a single player campaign on last gens since they had too little juice to support the maps and the AI.

1. You're continuing to mix up how the Wii U turned out, and what it could have been. I'm talking strictly about the latter.
2. I never said that it could be as good as the PS4 or X1 versions. It did come out on the Wii IIRC. Porting to a console that uses the same processor is incredibly easy.
   
3. The games you listed were just ports of old games. Expecting them to be popular on any console is just ridiculous.
4. I point you back to Crysis 3. There was nowhere to go but up on that. They lost every penny spent on making the Wii U version, just because they wouldn't let Nintendo release it.

If you really think that EA's quick change from overwhelming praise of the console to disgust was because they wanted to make money, I think you're naive. In my opinion, if you go out of your way to prevent a console's success at millions of dollars to your own expense, you're not focusing on the money. But let's just agree to disagree.

Edit: I don't have the link anymore, but the original source wasn't from Reddit. It was an anonymous interview. That's why I pointed out it was alleged.

 

[FAST6191]

I don't know if I could argue for a zero or negligible advertising and (I will tack on) production costs, assuming the thing was ready to go gold. I guess some games have gone out with little to no advertising at all in the past and some incidental could have worked (they then ignoring any Nintendo/Wii U specific advertising channels) but whether it would have made sense here I do not know. Equally I would say you are maybe undervaluing having a boot to Nintendo's throat, and being able to say you stood tall when it came to your somewhat struggling online service. I might also want to see their internal projections, the wii u was an obvious failure very soon after launch but it might have been predicted at some level.

EA are certainly bastards if what I care about is games but I can not fault them for anything here.

 

[Foxi4]

1. You're continuing to mix up how the Wii U turned out, and what it could have been. I'm talking strictly about the latter.
2. I never said that it could be as good as the PS4 or X1 versions. It did come out on the Wii IIRC. Porting to a console that uses the same processor is incredibly easy.
   
3. The games you listed were just ports of old games. Expecting them to be popular on any console is just ridiculous.
4. I point you back to Crysis 3. There was nowhere to go but up on that. They lost every penny spent on making the Wii U version, just because they wouldn't let Nintendo release it.

If you really think that EA's quick change from overwhelming praise of the console to disgust was because they wanted to make money, I think you're naive. In my opinion, if you go out of your way to prevent a console's success at millions of dollars to your own expense, you're not focusing on the money. But let's just agree to disagree.

Edit: I don't have the link anymore, but the original source wasn't from Reddit. It was an anonymous interview. That's why I pointed out it was alleged.

Yes, we'll have to agree to disagree, because you're the naive one, not me. Re-releases or not, those were quality titles that were both well-worth buying and still relatively popular. Crisis 3 ran on the PS3, I don't know why you're using it as some gold standard of engineering - it's not. It was when it was new, maybe, but most definitely not now. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be able to run games as well as the PS4 and the XBO, I'm saying that it wouldn't run them, period, not unless sub-HD @ sub-30 FPS is considered acceptable now.

Let me repeat what I actually stated instead of what you inferred - the PS4 and the XBO are sweating bullets running modern games at the bare minimum settings, so much so that both companies are releasing mid-stream upgrades for their systems, and they're several times more powerful than the Wii U. Thinking the Wii U would have any chance at competing is just silly, it'd need severely bogged down, castrated versions of the games, if it'd support them at all, just like the Wii did. When the PS3/360 got Far Cry 1-4, the Wii got Far Cry: Vengeance - you go ahead and play that, then tell me if specs gaps like this are healthy for game development.

By the way, it's not just EA who refused to support developers - according to Alex Ward, a former boss of Criterion, Nintendo didn't "give a sh*t" about NFS:MW either, despite him coming in to their HQ to demo the game personally, which is why he's not interested in Wii U development or cooperating with Nintendo.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20...issues_with_releasing_need_for_speed_on_wii_u

A sensible platform owner would probably approach EA and say "you have a good game going on, let's make this happen" - not Nintendo, even though they were in dire need of AAA content. Now he has his own studio and he's never coming back - you burn third-party devs, you don't get third-party support.

I don't know if I could argue for a zero or negligible advertising and (I will tack on) production costs, assuming the thing was ready to go gold. I guess some games have gone out with little to no advertising at all in the past and some incidental could have worked (they then ignoring any Nintendo/Wii U specific advertising channels) but whether it would have made sense here I do not know. Equally I would say you are maybe undervaluing having a boot to Nintendo's throat, and being able to say you stood tall when it came to your somewhat struggling online service. I might also want to see their internal projections, the wii u was an obvious failure very soon after launch but it might have been predicted at some level.

EA are certainly bastards if what I care about is games but I can not fault them for anything here.

Can we also stop pretending that logistics are free? Getting the games pressed, getting the artwork done, having the game reevaluated by ESRB and PEGI for a new platform, getting the packaging and then sending it all across the globe, along with some POS material for stores, is not free. Even if the game was just distributed digitally, there are server costs involved, as well as advertising. It wasn't a matter of "hey, we're done, here it is", it doesn’t work that way. And what about the outstanding costs of keeping the game online? Who's going to pay for the multiplayer servers for a game nobody's going to buy? There's a lot to think about here.

Still he is right that most games for Playstation (and XBOX) are one of these three ...
and all "good" games that would interesting ppl like me are Japanese only ;(

Sony offers the most Japanese garbage RPG's out of all of the big three, the stuff you can find on PSN ranges from incompetent to cringeworthy, it's perfect for weebs!

 

[osirisjem]

I said the Wii U failed mostly because of EA.

EA had little to no impact on the Wii U as a failure.

The Wii U failed because it was a failed premise.

 

[FrozenDragon150]

EA had little to no impact on the Wii U as a failure.

The Wii U failed because it was badly marketed and received few quality games on too spread time periods.

 

[FAST6191]

Bad marketing seems to be a crutch or a cop-out but I don't want to go there again.

"few games too far apart"
So unless Nintendo was going to make them themselves (not impossible with the funds they apparently have in the bank if they went on a buying spree for game devs but a very risky business plan) they get to provide the platform, just like basically every successful platform in history (certainly all of Nintendo's truly successful ones) and certainly in multi person/high expense/long form entertainment. They failed to provide a platform as attractive as the competition, now it is not impossible for a failed platform from a big vendor to be providing a ground for someone (I once heard a story of I think it was a nook* developer that was basically the only one playing -- Christmas rolls around and it has failed, them being basically the only game in town and pumping out boring educational games made them a tidy sum from those parents which picked wrongly and that wanted to get a tiny bit of value from the device) but this is not that.

*an ereader from a popular book seller before the kindle grabbed the market, and then tablets rendered that pointless for most.

Or if you prefer too few games is a symptom and not the disease.

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

On marketing failures then I am hardly going to laud the efforts of the marketing wonks, especially if the goal was to return a sizeable fraction of the wii crowd* and maybe convince some parents that might want to upgrade their crotch fruit's sega playstation. The wii u console or addon stuff seemed somewhat non existent from the people that followed games and according to people in threads like this constitute a big enough market to matter/sustain a console. The marketing does not excuse the shit specs, dev environments and services available.

*I also feel compelled to mention the drier than a dry thing nature of wii releases for the last few years of its lifetime.

The dev stuff is actually really good if you're doing it officially. They're even noob friendly. For anyone doing homebrew on a closed platform of course dev is hard, but Nintendo is very supportive of third party and independent developers alike. They've even made it super simple for just about anyone to become licensed (of course that's super recent, but still).

 

[FAST6191]

It might be a nice compiler and IDE (ones I saw in the past looked functional enough for the time and the continued to buy in good things for it so I can well believe that), possibly even some reference libraries (I have pulled apart my share of games and seen the results of said formats so again I can well believe it). I was thinking more like the unreal peeps saying meh, several of the other middleware people saying meh, the online/system offerings not being up to much (though I am not inclined to let the splatoon devs off for the drivel they spoke about voice chat it should have also been an OS level service really) and looking at what Ubisoft said when ZombiU was done and dusted.
Also though I agree it is easier now it is still with a nice NDA and such like. So perhaps easier than MS and Sony, at least since MS' XDA stuff was shuttered/fell apart and whatever happened for the Vita spluttered and died, but if the competition is going to be PC, android, apple's offerings and the like then it is not even close.
Or if you prefer MS once famously said "developers, developers, developers" and won many things because of it, Nintendo said "ner ner ner ner ner I'm the king of the castle" and might well have still had a nice castle, however while they were not looking everybody else had invented and was playing with guns and jet planes...

All that said environment might have been the wrong word, what with IDE being a popular term, perhaps ecosystem would have been a better choice.

 

[EmulateLife]

Wii U is a failure regardless of how it happened it happened I don't think anyone could argue against it being a failure. From the name Wii U to the sales and the marketing all terrible.

But I think NX will be very different. It's supposed to be the power of Xbox One and if you could take Xbox One quality graphics with you as a handheld I think a lot of people will have interest in that. Take two a huge software publisher who has never really paid much attention to Nintendo systems overall is praising it. I think a console/handheld hybrid is the only place for Nintendo to go because they can't out power PS4 or Scorpio but they will offer something those systems can't. I think there will be no shortage of 3rd party support because Nintendo has dominated the handheld market since Game Boy. I believe this will be a huge success.

 

[Saiyan Lusitano]

That's the same guy who said the Wii U was going to be great and with third party support, now look at it. It's a dog's turd.

 

[Bladexdsl]

your repeating the same mistakes already reg by not revealing the fucking thing!

 

[the_randomizer]

The Wii U was a mess, yes, it has good games, the console was badly marketed, third parties alienated, it's one helluva mess.